Paul Corey writes in today's San Francisco Chronicle, "Thousands packed onto the aircraft carrier Hornet on Saturday to hear Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin describe his experience as the second man on the moon - a desolate place, he said, where the air was so thin he felt like a kangaroo as he bounced on the surface."
Bear in mind, bouncing around like a kangaroo is not anything new here in the Man-Bunny Matrix, but take note, it is gravity, much more than relative atmospheric density, that keeps the rest of you from kangarooing here at home.
The 'air' on the moon is quite thin. Its atmosphere has roughly 1/1,000,000,000,000 the density of Earth's, and consists mainly of the odd molecule outgassing from the lunar surface. But even on Earth, unless a given kangaroo is grossly overweight, or fitted with a sail, its cross-sectional area is probably insufficient for the atmosphere to make much of a difference in its bounceability, relative to a vacuum. However, put this kangaroo on the surface of the Moon and it will experience a gravitational field roughly 1/6 what a kangaroo feels here on Earth. Still equipped with its powerful leg-muscles, this will make a big difference.
Yes, our Moon is a desolate place, where air is so thin it is effectively nonexistent, and acceleration due to gravity can make a kangaroo out of even you.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
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3 comments:
I heard this, do you have any soundbites, I don't believe Mr Aldrin could have said that. If he did, word for word, it is profoundly mysterious. He should get out of the studio quick. Buzz was always creative with words however and one could do worse than 'air' as a metaphor for a sensation of low gravity - ask Snoop Dog 'it's a rocket experience..'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xNBsueJ4wY
awesome poignant etc
It is not a direct quote. Our interpretation is that Aldrin mentioned the kangaroo, and the "thin air" part is the reporter's error.
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